Tayvallich is a small fishing village on the shores of Loch Sween, on the West coast of Scotland, in Argyll, enjoys spectacular scenery and has a vibrant community. Our climate is governed by the Gulf Stream, and even palm trees flourish.

A vital element of village life is tourism. The village is an ideal centre for your holiday, vacation or weekend break.Find out about Tayvallich and places of interest nearby including many prehistoric standing stones.Find out about the Village's award winning Seafood Pub and Restaurant, or plan your visit around one of our Village events.

There are many forestry walks in and around the peninsula, and the Taynish Nature Reserve is only one place of many where you can observe our local wildlife.

Tayvallich comes from the Gaelic Tigh a'Bhealaich which translates as "the house of the pass". A settlement is known to have existed at Tayvallich from at least the 1750s when this would have been a resting place on the track that ran the length of the peninsula to the Jura ferry at Keillmore.

Thomas Telford turned up everywhere in Scotland in the early 1800s, and his passing is still marked by a variety of bridges an other stone structures. He built piers at Keills, Tayvallich & Carsaig Bay, a few hundred yards away on the west side of the peninsula. On the Loch Sween side a fishing settlement grew, focused on its pier, on its inn and on the North Knapdale Parish Church.

The western pier became the focus of what is now Carsaig. Today, Carsaig remains a tiny settlement wrapped around a shingle bay, sandy when the tide is out, with views across to the north end of Jura.

Tayvallich is rather larger, though still only with a population of about 190. Of our housing stock about 65% is residential, 27% second homes & 8% holiday homes. A line of cottages strings around a remarkably sheltered bay: so sheltered, in fact it is almost cut off by spits prejecting into the main loch.

Also in Tayvallich is a small collection of services and a range of accommodation including a lochside caravan park. This is an ideal location for yachting enthusiasts, as is obvious from a glance at what is floating in the bay, or for those who really do want to get away from it all.

And if Tayvallich isn't far enough away from the hustle and bustle of 21st century life, it is worth making the extra effort to cover the remaining seven miles of single track road to Keillmore. This is home to the Chapel of the Keills, but the main reason to come here is simply to experience the isolation. Single track roads in Scotland are still fairly common. Single track roads with strips of grass this luxuriant growing down the centre are rather rarer. Not many people come this way.

The roads from Bellanoch to Tayvallich and then to Keillmore are single track. For more information about Scotland's single track roads and how to drive them, visit our feature page on driving single track roads.

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Contact Us

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